Marc's Public Blog - Clubbing

2026/03/27 Another Great Beyond Wonderland Socal

π 2026-03-27 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

Fun thing, I was re-reading my Beyond Wonderland Scoal 2024 report and it looked quite similar, but that's a good thing because I wrote then that it was the best one yet, so that makes this one still "the best one yet" :) I would also mention that outside of the part that it ends way earlier (02:00 instead of 05:30), you can compare BW to a smaller EDC with better decors and a wonderful fun theme

The lake still looked great

Festival Grounds

Ok, its kind of hilarious is that I managed to sit on the same side of the plane to San Bernardino and get shots of the venue during landing:

don't get lost :)

Beyond really wins for the decors, the Insomniac crews do amazing work every time:

where else can you have a stuffed animal race? :)

And nice booths as always:

I also have to point out that this is likely the best Passport of any Insomniac festival I've been to:

The cool thing about Beyond are the hidden rooms and stages:

And it gets better at night, as always:

They had a few fireworks and a short drone show, those were nothing by EDC standards, but still nice:

took me a while to read 'I shall be late'

One change this year is cell phone service did not improve. I technically had signal, but the cell towers weren't really passing any data. However, they added a lot more wifi, which I must say worked actually quite well (especially compared to some prior festivals where it failed pretty badly):

don't need to write them down, they change every year :)

3 different wifi networks

People

The insomniac performers were top notch again:

And people brought very nice costumes too:

I also took a few more pictures with DJs :)

Day #1

Anyway, let's not get to the two days of festival. The festival started at 15:00 this year again, although this year it was quite hot (unusual heat wave in March).

Trivecta

Tiesto was last and it played a nice set with good trance:

And then this happened, Tiesto stopped his car to take a picture of me and with me on his way out :)

Day #2

Day 2 was a bit cooler, I came earlier to see the trance DJs who played early:

very cool B2B

Infected Mushroom came back

so did Gareth

Good times were had :)

After the event ended at 02:00, went to the after party (onsite), which was better than being stuck in traffic or wait hours for an uber, but it was kind of basic EDM, so I got bored after about 30mn. Still, it was nice to have this for those who wanted to continue to party:

Video of Days #1 & #2:

Thoughts/Conclusions

As I wrote above, working Wifi, 3 different networks no less, was a good addition

Which is good because cell didn't work well

Great decors again

The one thing I didn't love was how offset the VIP viewing areas were from the stages center, especially Chesire Woods

It felt to me that there were plenty of drink vendors, but not even food vendors. The food lines were way long.

Like past years, The many theme appropriate performers were still there, maybe more even, and it really added to the event.

I'll repeat other insomniac festivals, like EDC and Dreamstate, all the staff truly cares and goes all out. Many small details that get sometimes missed elsewhere, are usually flawless

15:00 to 02:00 plus an afterparty until 06:00. That's more than you can do :)

8 stages, definitely a lot...

Now, I do have to state that trance content was low and lower than before. It's not a trance festival of course, and that follows the general general trends, so trance on Day2 was more to be seen as a bonus.

My general verdict is still the same: it's a beautiful festival, I'd say more beautiful than EDC even if smaller, and definitely worth going to, a second only to EDC.

'Till next time:

Links

Google Photos Album

Day 1 & 2 Video Summary

All IG Stories

Video with all IG stories together

See more images for Another Great Beyond Wonderland Socal

2026/03/20 EDM Orchestra at Midway SF, So Much Potential But Ruined by Terrible Sound

π 2026-03-20 01:01 in Clubbing

I'm a bit fan of this genre, this is what it can look like if it's done right. Classical Trancelations in Concert 2018:

and Classical Trancelations 2020 - Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra: of course, also Above & Beyond Acoustic - Full Concert Film Live from Porchester Hall:

Now, I'm reasonable, I knew it was not going to be anything close to those, but I also knew how good it could be when done right. It was clearly a smaller version of it, and maybe not ironically they played a fair amount of tracks from classical Trancelations, but the sound was positively horrible:

the worst offense was repeated feedback between speakers and microphone

the mixer was setup all wrong, too much of the wrong frequencies

and often times you could barely hear the singing

Often times, the sound was just painful, which was such a shame.

A few pictures:

sound was so bad that my friend Seb left after less than 30mn

I got some of the more bearable sound bits here:

See more images for EDM Orchestra at Midway SF, So Much Potential But Ruined by Terrible Sound

2026/03/06 2 Day Dreamstate SF Back at Bill Graham

π 2026-03-06 01:01 in Clubbing, Dreamstate, Festivals, Tfsf

We're back baby, back at Bill Graham after our last 2 Day Dreamstate at Bill Graham in San Francisco 8 years ago. Last year we had a 2 Day Event at Cow Palace

Like each time, we are very grateful for our Trancefamily SF reunion

Yes!

So last year, Dreamstate SF was a Cow Palace with 2 rooms until 03:00. The first obvious question, is which was best? Honestly mainstage was good at both, but Bill Graham definitely had better lasers, maybe because of Gareth :) As for the 2 stages vs 1, I'll be honest that mainstage last year had a fair amount of music that was not my favorite, including Eric Prydz/Pryda which I've never really enjoyed, and some DJs that sounded more like techno than trance to me. So last year, I spent a lot more time at the smaller Vision stage for my favorite trance sounds. Given that, I was delighted to only have one stage this year that was mostly music I enjoyed and on a much better stage. Also, it's kind of nice not to have to move stages and occasionally have to worry about set conflicts ;)
The one downside of Bill Graham was what I assume was an earlier curfew of 01:00 (Cow Palace last year ended at 03:00 instead of 01:00)

Did I mention that we got a few extra lasers likely thanks to Gareth? :)

Day 1

Since this year ended at 01:00, we started at 17:00 for 8h of trance:

Olly James

Nilsix

Jeffrey Sutorius

The absolute highlight of the day was Ferry Corsten playing a new Gouryella. Strangely he was not the last to play, which was weird as his set was guaranteed to be the best, and he sure delivered. It was another religious experience that surpassed the previous ones I had seen:

and yes, I caught the backwards easter egg :)

This really was the best set of the night by far, not that the other ones were bad, but this one was that good. I even caught the easter egg (clickme)

I did record the full set, although it wasn't with my best camera, apologies for this, but the music is still there:

W&W was last, but Ferry was a tough act to follow:

And that was it for Day 1. Here is the video summary:

I'm not sure what was going on after party-wise, nothing major I think, but given that I had just gotten back from 4 days ASOT, I was happy to get some rest to be there bright and early for day 2 :)

Day 2

our local TFSF boy, Sony opened day 2 again

TFSF represent!

Talla 2XLC was next, great set, great to see him again after just one week in Rotterdam :)

then Roman Messer, I also had seen just a week prior

Aly and Fila

Aly and Fila's full set:

Paul Van Dyk

Paul Van Dyk's full set:

And the night ended with Gareth, with muchos lasers, beautiful:

Yes, I have Gareth's full set here, enjoy:

Gareth was a great ending to day 2, here is a summary:

People

Of course I'm biased, but having just come back from ASOT, the crowds at Dreamstate events are much more festive:

A few pictures for fun as always:

Dave Dresden came to visit :)

shout out to the ground control teams, thank you

my heroes

and Gareth!

Thoughts/Conclusions

Artist-wise, it was likely a lower budget event than last year, only one stage, no Armin, no Pryda. But guess what? Honestly Pryda is not my thing, and while I do remember that Armin at least played trance at DS (which he did not at ASOT for the most part), he must not have been cheap. This is where I personally don't mind if we have DJs that don't cost as much and play music I enjoy just as much, if not more.

This time around it was a simpler event with single room, but we still had plenty of DJs and loads of fun without (I assume) spending as much money on the DJs as last year, which also left more money for the visuals, and they were definitely really good this year. I do not have access to any numbers like attendance or financials, but my guess is that this year the crowd was more trance lovers focussed, and that the event still made money, which of course is essential for us having more in the future.

The Artists we had played either mostly trance, or a reasonable mix of trance and other genres that I didn't find too hurtful to the ear :) (I did notice that both Fadi and PvD went a bit harder trance than they usually do, at the edge of techno at times).

Gouryella and Gareth's show both topped the best sets of last year as far as I'm concerned, so this was great!

In summary, we had a fantastic time, honestly I think it was a great combination of venue and artists. After Dreamstate Socal, this is the best Dreamstate Event in the world :)